Nigel Farage wants Ukip to remain 'a bunch of amateurs'

Ukip cannot become a professional political organisation that threatens the
main parties because Nigel Farage refuses to give up power over it, the
party’s former chief executive has said.

Mr Gilpin is said to have left on good terms

James Kirkup and Jon Laurence

9:00PM BST 20 Aug 2013

Will Gilpin, who left his job this week, said that Mr Farage’s reluctance to accept professional management means Ukip will remain “a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs” who never fulfil their political potential.

Mr Gilpin, a former RAF pilot hired to professionalise Ukip, told the Telegraph that Mr Farage and his inner circle resisted his efforts to improve the party’s management and organisation.

Mr Gilpin is a former RAF Tornado pilot who then spent a decade working on major projects for organisations including BP and the Home Office.

He joined Ukip last year, and said he found a chaotic and disorganised party built around Mr Farage’s personality and whims.

“The thing I am most shocked by is that Nigel does his own thing without the party knowing where he is or what he is doing,” he said.

“Nigel is a great orator and a useful man for the party, but you have to use him in the scope of the wider organisation, rather than thinking ‘It’s all about Nigel’.

“Nigel would see the party as being about him. The party is structured like a flying wedge, pushing Nigel forward.”

Focusing on the 2015 general election, Mr Gilpin drew up plans for a standardised plan for election campaigns across the country, a “lessons learned” culture to ensure constant improvements, and a training regime for staff and candidates. He also planned a new structure to address the “big hole” in Ukip’s policy agenda.

Updating the party’s organisation would inevitably reduce Mr Farage’s influence over Ukip, Mr Gilpin said. “Nigel has to have less power. There is no way around it.”

However, he said, he was blocked by Mr Farage and his circle, who resisted changes that would formalise party rules and make them more accountable to members.

“The leap from being a small group of people who have fun and do what they want to being a professional political party was too much,” Mr Gilpin said.

The refusal to change will limit Ukip’s ability to win Westminster seats in 2015, he said.

“The party has decided it likes things the way they are – so Ukip remains a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs having a good time, rather than the professional fighting team they could be,” he said.

“Individually, they have the skills to make that happen, but that means working together, and that is not really happening.”

In 2015, Mr Gilpin said, Mr Farage and his team will underperform.

“They might still win some seats – but not as many as they would if they organised and structured themselves to make the most of what they have,” he said.

Ukip sources have this week suggested that Mr Gilpin left because he was better suited to running IT systems than to a senior management role.

Mr Gilpin said he left the party because of Mr Farage’s refusal to implement his plans.

“I left by mutual agreement in response to my dissatisfaction at the fact I was not being allowed to do the job I was hired to do, which was to professionalise the party,” he said.

A Ukip spokesman said that Mr Gilpin “leaves with a great deal of warmth”.

He said: “He has worked very hard to provide the structures that he was asked to provide and which proved very uncomfortable to some in the party. He has been very successful and we wish him all the best.”

The party has not said who will replace Mr Gilpin. Rumours have suggested that Mr Farage is keen for the job to go to Neil Hamilton, the former Conservative MP who joined Ukip in 2002, but party sources insisted that was not the case.